


Crickets

by tvprince



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Multi, Nonbinary Oikawa Tooru, Teacher AU, oikawa and michimiya are friends, pet tarantula, they all work at a school and oikwaw works through some personal shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 14:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16996728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvprince/pseuds/tvprince
Summary: Three weeks after Oikawa finallyfinallybreaks it off with Ushijima, he ghosts on them.





	Crickets

**Author's Note:**

> started as a hq fic, turned into a creative writing assignment, and now im returning it to its origins and vague character study

Three weeks after Oikawa finally _finally_ breaks it off with Ushijima, he ghosts on them.

This wouldn’t have mattered had Ushijima actually left their shared apartment after the split, but after reviewing alternate places the night of the breakup (as thorough as always), he deigned to stay with the halfed rent and an ex. It’s not as if anything romantic transpired between them for several months, the change left little impact at this point.

But suddenly leaving after so adamantly arguing against going? Oikawa wouldn’t tolerate such waffling. They hacked into the laptop Ushijima so kindly left behind (along with his sheets, his gluten-free bread, a closet full of the same style button-down shirt, and his pet tarantula, Earnest Hemingway) and uploaded the least flattering pictures of him onto his social media pages.

\---

Oikawa retracts their earlier statement—ghosting would be preferable, but they soon learn Ushijima left human form and reverted to a virus. A spite-virus. A spirus.

Now, Oikawa thinks, pillowed by various felt blankets and ugly stuffed toys, Ushijima really is the most bitter person on the planet. Oikawa supposes in some weird alternate reality, they might be over-thinking this but there are signs. Right after Ushijima disappeared, Oikawa felt a cold coming on, all hot flashes and stuffy sinuses. The more Oikawa tampers with the remains of Ushijima’s belongings, the worse the symptoms build. And it’s not just a little cold (which, by the way, is a complete under-exaggeration. Oikawa’s fucking miserable), but Oikawa swears to heaven and hell that they still hear Ushijima talking to them. He speaks in obnoxious little wisps like breezes in their mind. Nothing sounds like human speech. It drives Oikawa up a fucking wall.

Oikawa scrolls their twitter feed, refreshing the tab with Ushijima’s profile every few minutes with some half-extinguished hope that the activity will reboot. Oikawa only half-believes themself that Ushijima still lingers within the thin plaster walls as an ugly little amoeba. Or maybe amoeba isn’t the right term? Oikawa only just skimmed by their science classes, so they hold no certainty. They entertain the thought that maybe the fae spirited Ushijima away as some funny trick to play on his human ex. Even that doesn’t seem right as Oikawa works awful hard to keep the fae (as well as trickster gods) out of the home space. No, the only logical explanation remains that Ushijima is a bitter prick who chose to play poltergeist on their ass. Oikawa sneezes and groans.

\---

“I’m in hell,” Oikawa whines, holding the cellphone between their ear and shoulder as they shuffle through the quiet apartment, wearing a thick blanket around their shoulders like royal robes.

“Uh-huh…” Michimiya mumbles through the line.

“Pay attention to me! I’m telling you something important.”

Michimiya sighs. “You’ve told me this like ten times though. And I’m in the middle of a class right now, I told you that! I really can’t talk long, you know how middle schoolers get.”

“I’m having a crisis, I don’t know what to do,” Oikawa makes some weird gurgled noise as they pick out a cricket and drop it into Earnest Hemingway's tank.

“Listen, you have a shitty cold and a shitty ex—it happens. But seriously, if you wanna keep complaining it’s gonna have to be later, I—” a loud crash sounds somewhere in the background where Michimiya is. “Fuck. Okay, talk to you later, love you, bye.”

Oikawa stares down at the phone in their hand like a horrible reminder of the state of their life. They turn to watch a sluggish Earnest Hemingway creep towards the deposited cricket.

“What the hell are you looking at, Earnest?”

\---

Earnest Hemingway and Ushijima mirror each other in that they both make for remarkably terrible conversationalists. A month of this magical cold and Oikawa takes to speaking to Hemingway like a conduit to reach Ushijima’s innumerous cells within their sick and fatigued body. Oikawa talks to the tarantula for hours between sifting through the daily chores and grading terrible essays on art history. They switch between speaking and signing, and in moments of absolute distraction, Oikawa misses the replies they know Ushijima would punctuate in their tirades. It was little to nothing and added jack shit to the conversation Oikawa carried single-handedly, but Earnest cannot even say ‘yes, I know.’

In the middle of another rant on Game of Thrones because really it’s so over-hyped and poorly written and most of all their students should not be watching that they’re only sixteen, someone knocks on the door. That noise in particular isn’t too important as Oikawa loves Amazon almost as much as they love seeing teenagers make stupid skateboarding mistakes (which is to say a lot), but behind the door lay not a package, but Michimiya looking a mess with flyaway hairs and rumpled clothes. She taps her fingers to her leg in a stim too fast to be a good sign.

“I’m going to kill these fucking kids!” she groans, stomping inside and pushing aside the lopsided tower of ugly stuffed animals Oikawa threw on the couch two days ago. She sprawls over the couch, and upon further examination, Oikawa notes the flecks of glaze speckling her choppy hair, the smears of clay along her cheeks. Ceramics or not, Michimiya stays notably clean throughout the process. Only a pair of old jeans that are probably half composed of layers of dried clay by now and an outdated ripped apron she leaves in her office the only clues to where she spends half her life.

“I’ve told you about that fucking Eiji kid, right?” Michimiya starts, her voice half muffled by a Gumby plush doll.

Oikawa nods as they shuffle to the kitchen. They shock their fingers on the fridge handle.

“Okay so that brat, never listens during my lectures, always trying to throw clay at other students, this brat fucks up kneading the clay because of course he does, throws it in the kiln with tons of air holes. It explodes because that’s how ceramics fucking works, and worst of all, it takes half the classes’ pieces with it!”

Oikawa places a mug of milk in the microwave and sets it running at half power, flinching with sympathy, “Oh God...”

“Yeah. Yeah. Oh God is right,” Michimiya flips over so she lays back-down on the couch and when Oikawa walks out of the kitchen, she looks too close to crying.

“So now we’re set behind schedule because half the class has to fucking remake their pieces because this kid can’t follow directions, and I don’t even know how to break it to them. I saw this one girl grabbing pictures of her dragon teapot and someone else even told his parents about his piece on the phone at the end of class today. I’m so fucking sad for them, y’know? They worked so hard on these and it’s really fucking upsetting when all your hard work is ruined by one person.”

Michimiya starts sniffling and Oikawa kneels by the couch to run their fingers through her hair, gently picking out each flake of dried glaze and clay. Oikawa remembers two years ago when Michimiya lived with someone less kind than her current girlfriend. They remember the way she pulled Michimiya away from group dinners and the look she gave Oikawa like a jumping spider, insignificant and dangerous all at once. Oikawa remembers seeing Michimiya’s no longer shared apartment three days after the breakup, the fluorescent lights jumping from the shards of Michimiya’s lifelong joys like they fought for the attention. There’s still a bin somewhere in Michimiya’s closet with the broken pieces that she still hasn’t managed to fix.

Oikawa lets Michimiya cry and when she lifts her hand like searching they grab it and hold tight. The microwave beeps in the background.

Michimiya stops crying the same way she starts: all at once and like nothing ever happened. She sits up slow and exhausted. The Gumby plushie ends up in her other hand and she looks at it like inspecting a bubble in glaze.

“This thing is so creepy, why the hell do you keep it around?”

“I can’t believe you’d say that, Gumby’s a classic!” Oikawa says, and they rescue Gumby from her invalidating clutches.

Michimiya scans over the room with more attention than before. Tissues layer the floor like footprints and seemingly every blanket within Oikawa’s possession lay draped across the backs of chairs, couches, and even one on the dining table.

“Have you been living like this? It’s disgusting,” She mumbles while reaching for the Kleenex box so conveniently smooshed within the pile of stuffed toys on the couch.

“I’m sick,” Oikawa says like an excuse. Michimiya makes a point of turning away from them. Oikawa returns to the kitchen now that she has other things to occupy her mind.

They check the microwave, stick the mug in another minute, and emerge from the kitchen within five, pushing a cup of instant hot chocolate into Michimiya’s grateful fingers.

Oikawa watches Michimiya with a clear-headedness they lacked for days. Red, puffed eyes give the impression this isn’t the first time she cried recently. Her fingers tremble and create ripples in the hot chocolate in her hands. Eyes trail to the corners of the room, to the empty spaces that hold too much for her to think on.

Without much flourish, Oikawa turns on the cheap television across the room and pulls up Cutthroat Kitchen in an instant. Michimiya follows the actions with tense muscles.

By the time Alton Brown sends away a second chef and the third challenge announced, the two sit practically immersed by the stained couch cushions, Michimiya’s hot chocolate half-forgotten on an end table.

“Who fucking forgets eggs for a breakfast sandwich...” Michimiya mumbles like a personal offense. But she no longer stares into the corners with shoulders weighted by invisible boulders, so Oikawa counts it as a small victory.

\---

Eight weeks after Ushijima disappears, eight weeks of sleeplessness and excessive sneezing, and Oikawa refusing to leave the house except for work and groceries. Their flat still looks ransacked, more so even as Oikawa cannot find the time to tidy between migraines and nausea. Ushijima’s taken to whispering more, filling Oikawa’s mind with nonsensical sounds impossible to piece into any understandable language. Oikawa lives with an icepack to their forehead more often than not.

“Yeah I wasn’t fucking happy with you either,” Oikawa tries to tell Ushijima in only a whisper because anything louder makes their ears ring. They go tense and squeamish, but still throw a cricket to Earnest Hemingway. He crawls along the floor by Oikawa’s feet because they got lonely.

The house retains some vaguely disgusting stench of almost-mildewy towels and sweated out t-shirts. When Ushijima’s abandoned pile of dirty laundry began to smell a couple weeks ago Oikawa threw it in the wash in an attempt to relieve a fit of chills. Somehow, they lack the energy to do the same with their own ill-smelling piles of laundry.

A Vick’s brand humidifier (courtesy of Michimiya) hasn’t been turned off since she handed it off to Oikawa three weeks prior. The rumbling sounds familiar and the awful medicine plugged into it cannot even phase Oikawa as they lack the ability to smell anything.

Oikawa stands. The blanket previously wrapped around their shoulders pools at their feet. They dip down to coax Earnest Hemingway to climb atop their outstretched hand before placing him back safe in his tank. Oikawa stares ahead with a tenseness ill-suited for heading to the bathroom, but if their gaze sways, the piles and trails of Ushijima left in the house will haunt their mind. Surely, this mechanical robot-walk remains preferable.

They run the bath. They undress. They stare themself in the eye and take in the ghosted skin and messy hair. The permanently red eyes because they cry a lot now.

Oikawa steps into the bath with a clean pair of ankle socks because they live to disappoint. The warm water soaking into the fabric feels like a cozy, almost-stifling room. Oikawa dips their head underwater and blows bubbles through their stuffed nose.

The water sloshes when Oikawa sits up, reaching for the towel hanging near the bath to dry one hand before grabbing their phone. Seeing as they don’t fear death, Oikawa slouches into the bathwater, holding their cracked phone a scarce few inches from the pool. Ushijima always hated this.

Oikawa pulls up the lot of it: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest. All of Ushijima’s same-iconed, same-usernamed accounts give no updates since a few days before his vanishing. Something too-tight wraps around their lungs like an electric cord. They choke a bit and drop their phone onto the rug outside the bath. The sound of their own crying reverberating through the small room makes Oikawa sick to their stomach.

\---

Oikawa joins Earnest Hemingway on the floor to take their meals. They enjoy the companionship. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with a plate of hot pockets also fills them with a gentle nostalgia of college dorms and the blatant disrespect of adulthood.

They wonder somewhere between the second hot pocket and laying down on the floor with the plate pushed aside if Earnest Hemingway misses Ushijima. Do spiders have the capacity to miss people? Oikawa spreads out eagle on their back. They imagine growing an extra four limbs. They imagine their bones slipping free from the muscle encaging them to fuse together to become exoskeleton. They imagine jealously eating the other spiders in the house.

\---

Michimiya still asks about Oikawa, still calls outside of work hours. Always keeping topics to something safe: Netflix took down Chopped, The supermarket has an amazing deal on asparagus, how’s Earnest Hemingway? Adorable as always. She never asks about Ushijima and for that courtesy alone, Oikawa always takes her calls. Too frequently, Oikawa turns down the offer to swing by that cute coffee shop down the road from the school or take a walk before the weather gets unbearably cold. The thought of leaving the house feels too overwhelming. Ushijima keeps Oikawa company like a haunting. It’s hard to talk much when Oikawa must focus on whatever Ushijima finds pertinent to tell them.

\---

 

Oikawa makes a full pot of coffee only to decide against partaking in it. They leave a mug on their alter before passing out on the couch.

\---

The pressing weight of the responsibility of having ruined everything between Ushijima and Oikawa keeps Oikawa bed-bound the entirety of the weekend.

\---

When their mothers asks about Ushijima, Oikawa hangs up the phone.

\---

Most work days for Oikawa pass in a blur. To be honest, they cannot quite remember the last day they stood in front of two dozen half-asleep high schoolers without dissociating through some lecture about impressionism or soldering. Aya, bless her heart, actually interrupted Oikawa two days ago when they apparently started a lesson on rivets to the Drawing I students.

As it stands, they sit slumped and staring at a motivational poster they bought as a joke a year and a half ago at the art store. Their eyes seem to cross of their own accord as they are wont to do before Oikawa Big Time dissociates. The overly bright heart-shaped balloons start to blend into their background. “Listen to your heart” and some unintelligible text across the glossy paper evolve into black smudges. Bees buzzing through Oikawa’s skull remind them that Ushijima must have something to say. They ignore him as well as the onslaught of sudden nausea. Even the sleeve of saltine crackers they brought specifically in mind for the stomachache they foresaw this morning sound heavy and unappealing. They miss Earnest Hemingway. They don’t look up when Michimiya enters their classroom without knocking.

“Do you think Earnest Hemingway can break out of his tank? Y’know like those viral octopus videos,” Oikawa says.

“If he could, you wouldn’t have so many fruit flies hovering around the fruit bowl all the time,” Michimiya says without hesitation. Oikawa doesn’t know how to tell her the fruit bowl has remained barren for weeks. Turning their head because somehow their eyes feel anchored in place, Oikawa watches Michimiya crane her neck to look over their desk with taught lips and that particular squint she gets when comparing the prices of bread. Oikawa smiles as the world goes a little blurry. Ah, they must have crossed their eyes again.

“Are you just migrating your messes now?” She finally says after waiting several moments for Oikawa to pick up on her nonverbal cues.

“I’m cursed,” Oikawa shrugs with a sardonic laugh because if they think too long about it they’ll cry and lunch break ends in about 10 minutes.

Both blurry Michimiyas in their vision hesitate a respectful breath before letting out a sigh of a raspberry. Oikawa sticks out their tongue.

“Stop crossing your eyes, you’ll give yourself a headache,” Michimiya pokes Oikawa’s forehead before ruffling their hair and pushing a stack of papers on Oikawa’s desk aside just enough to seat herself, “Anyway, have you met Mizoguchi’s long-term sub? They’re supposed to be starting today, but no one ever comes by the art hallway.”

Oikawa’s head nods through sheer force of habit before the words process to understanding and they shake ‘no’ instead, “Uhh…” their tongue is sheet metal, “…no,” Oikawa thinks hard a moment, “Heard they’re hot though.”

“Really?”

“No,” Oikawa snorts, “All my kids do is fight over who gets to plug their ipod or iphone or whatever into the speakers,” Oikawa scrunches their nose, “I listened to so much Mountain Goats today. I forget how depressed everyone gets in winter.”

“That’s why I just play the radio, you waste less class time then,” Michimiya automatically starts organizing the various piles of essays and notes scattered over Oikawa’s desk. Oikawa lets it happen because they certainly weren’t planning on sifting through it.

Lifting their shoulders to a shrug reveals itself to be too much work, so Oikawa instead grunts something unintelligible. The buzzing in their head increases, but that’s fair. Ushijima always mocked Oikawa for the nuances within their classroom.

Once the towers of papers look a little less close to tipping over, Michimiya gives Oikawa a onceover. Her eyes feel a little too perceptive, so Oikawa turns their head.

“Lunch is almost over and I still gotta get ready for my next class,” Oikawa says because they still lack the backbone to say straight that they want to be left alone.

Oikawa imagines Michimiya opening and closing her mouth like a pacman. Or maybe letting her eyebrows wrinkle something furious because of how standoffish they’ve become through spirus-induced suffering. It almost makes Oikawa feel like laughing.

Michimiya hops off Oikawa’s desk and moves the sleeve of saltine crackers into Oikawa’s peripheral like subliminal messaging, “I’ll see you at the meeting; you’d better not skip; Ukai looked ready to blow last Wednesday.”

And she’s gone.

Oikawa slumps as if suddenly becoming an invertebrate. The overly-sensible shoes they stole from Ushijima’s side of the closet squeak against the tile. They turn over the possibility of throwing one of these ugly shoes into the kiln.

\---

Somehow, Oikawa ends up at the meeting. They honestly thought they walked towards the back exit, but somehow their Ushijima-shoe clad feet directed them right to the back room and into an uncomfortable metal chair next to Michimiya’s. At least she looks pleased to see them. Oikawa sneezes and reaches across the table to drag the Kleenex box closer.

They notice Mizoguchi’s long-term sub like a lamp left on. His face looks a little too long, almost like an armadillo. His tense shoulders remind Oikawa of their first meeting within these walls. Oikawa leans back and closes their eyes to imagine a young teacher, a Oikawa that used to look forward to the daylight hours. One who could breathe through their nose.

And if Michimiya invites the new guy and Oikawa out for coffee afterward, that’s okay.

\---

Long-term sub—Iwaizumi, apparently—holds all the ferocity and stubbornness of a rabbit. During coffee when Oikawa’s impulse control reacts a little too late and they tell Iwaizumi he looks more like a ‘Tanaka’ or a ‘Sato,’ he gives Oikawa a look like he’d just been told the ice cream parlor discontinued vanilla. Michimiya nearly spits out her frappuccino.

With head throbbing and feet swollen from shoes not their own, Oikawa steps out early with a drowsy sort of wave. They nearly rear end another car in the parking lot.

At home, they fall asleep at the dining room table and wake up only after the late-night television switches to infomercials and remember to feed Earnest Hemingway.

\---

They take a day off after vomiting water and bile for three hours because Oikawa has yet to actually fit sustenance back into their diet. Something like a wheezing-spittling coughs in the room adjacent. One last huffing outburst; the Vick’s humidifier dies out in the living room and Oikawa falls asleep on the bathroom tile using the rug as a last-minute comforter.

\---

During passing period, Iwaizumi occasionally wanders through the art hallway. Oikawa waves and asks how he’s been because they’re terrified of people hating them without reason. Oikawa at least wants to give Iwaizumi a chance to find true, purposeful reason to hate them.

Every time before Iwaizumi returns to the main building, back to the carpeted halls of the STEM subjects, he wishes Oikawa good luck getting over their cold like a sigil. Oikawa laughs awkward and hopeless because they never want to speak again of how their ex cursed them to suffer illness for four months straight.

\---

At 3 AM one night, Oikawa wakes in defiance of the sluggishness still holding their limbs hostage in the sheets. With the wait of the paralysis, Ushijima speaks in sentiments. The guilt and the anxiety battle out through Oikawa’s rib cage, climbing up their throat, and lighting fire to their eyes. They’re sobbing by the time they can move again.

In the rush to pull over their phone, Oikawa jostles and knocks over the medicine bottles on the battered nightstand. Orange and white flash and clatter to an unbearable mess on the carpet. Oikawa’s fingers shake as they open up a new message to Michimiya:

_do yo ustill like me?_

_itd my fsult right?_

_tgis is never gona end_

Despite the hour of effort typing and retyping messages in the too-small box, Oikawa thinks better of it and deletes the lot of it. They waste away the few hours between their panic and their alarm clock with their head submerged under the sheets and the comforter and the extra blanket. They leave only a small gap in the cocoon to let cool winter air into the broken sanctuary.

\---

It feels foreign speaking to someone who never knew Ushijima. There is no ‘How’s Ushijima these days’ or ‘I haven’t seen Ushijima in a while’ discussion. There is no Ushijima.

Of course, there is Ushijima, but Iwaizumi doesn’t know this. Ushijima hates Iwaizumi. He makes this apparent in the excessively painful body aches, or the flares in sharp nausea. Sometimes, as if trying to goad a reaction from Oikawa, he disappears altogether as if a simpler life ever existed for Oikawa. But then he returns, jackass he is, tenfold force.

Oikawa flushes with fever and humiliation after suddenly jumping to the trash bin across the room to vomit what little food entered their stomach within the past 24 hours. Iwaizumi rubs their back and tells Oikawa of the time he once left home without wearing shoes and had to hide his socked feet all through a day of teaching.

\---

“I keep losing eyelashes,” Iwaizumi says one day, halfway through their lunch hour.

“You what now,” Oikawa bought a sandwich from the cafeteria, but only manages a few bites. However, the grapes they brought remain only as a bag of stems stuffed in the garbage. They’re quite proud of managing to keep it all down to be honest.

“Yeah, y’know how like your body handles stress differently? Well, I lose eyelashes,” He says it all at once, all in one big gust with enough stubbornness to not be questioned.

Now that Oikawa looks for it, they spot only the bare-bone minimum clusters of lashes outlining Iwaizumi’s eyes. Several patches too thin to be God-designed. Somehow, the bare lips around Iwaizumi’s eyes look a little too naked.

“Does it hurt?” Oikawa asks, leaning in to better survey the unnatural thinning.

“What? No, why would it? It’s not like I pull them out, they just fall all the time,” Iwaizumi’s eyebrows scrunch over those few eyelashes before he suddenly flinches in a little and pulls a hand to his eye, “Ow…”

“What happened?”

“I think an eyelash fell in my eye.”

\---

When Oikawa’s mother calls with the same burning questions about Ushijima and the state of their apartment, Oikawa allows their fingers to earthquake and tells her Ushijima isn’t in their life anymore. The stab of pain Ushijima argues into Oikawa’s back keeps them stuck on the couch for the day, but when Michimiya stops by with a pizza and a big hug, it feels okay.

\---

The sharp acidic bleach smell navigates the labyrinth of Oikawa’s sinuses to give them a headache, but Oikawa takes it like an award. Their eyes burn hot with frustration and relief because the kitchen hasn’t looked this clean for almost half a year. Ushijima rumbles quietly beneath the surface, but may as well possess only the power of seasonal allergies the way Oikawa glows at the effort they finally managed to offer to their mess of a lifestyle.

Oikawa prepares tea using kettle and everything. Ushijima feels distant in this singular moment. Finished, Oikawa washes their mug without hesitation.

\---

Whatever flesh body Ushijima once possessed isn’t coming back. Ushijima’s special bread and even the curious jars of home-remedies expired weeks, months ago. Slinking, the slugs of Ushijima’s nonperishable remnants, the clothes and the papers and the material objects Oikawa manifested into the man himself—those have migrated, are migrated. Once inched to make room day by day, now in comparison compartmentalized to leave the house as a shell. The walls hold enough of Ushijima’s presence to forever lock Oikawa under him. The womb and tomb as one. Nothing can thrive here anymore, but realizing the death feels half the battle.

\---

Michimiya offers Oikawa a ride in her muddied old truck to purchase armfuls of empty boxes from the U-haul store across town. Oikawa buys her lunch and actually manages to eat their own portion.

\---

“I’ve always loved Earnest Hemingway,” Michimiya says to Oikawa with a hole-freckled rag in one hand and some sort of store-brand general cleaner in the other. The spider in question had been carted tank and all into the bedroom to be spared from the sanitization of the living room.

“I’ve been looking into spider care ever since you and Ushijima showed him to me,” Michimiya says, and hearing Ushijima’s name only brings a little nausea, a little bile in Oikawa’s throat, “If you don’t want him, I can take care of him.”

Earnest Hemingway was always Ushijima’s. Even after his disappearance and reappearance as the biggest thorn in Oikawa’s side, Oikawa only considers themselves as acting-owner. And as Ushijima’s out-of-body desertion persisted, Oikawa kept careful track, keeps careful track to care for and safeguard a pet they never considered their own in the first place. One last shackle to something long dead.

Oikawa sniffles a little and needs several moments to absorb this, but can’t rub their eyes because of the windex coating their fingers, “You and Misaki would really be okay with that?” they whisper.

“Of course,” Michimiya says as if she wasn’t offering them a small sliver of salvation in reassurance alone.

Cleaning gets queued to Oikawa’s sudden and expected tears.

\---

After the Wednesday after school meeting and before the now ritualized coffee dates with Iwaizumi and Michimiya, Oikawa mentions in passing to Iwaizumi that they’ve been separated from their ex for six months. And for seemingly the first time, someone accepts that as it is.

\---

The apartment belongs not to Oikawa, nor to anyone anymore, and they count down to the end of their lease like an advent calendar. Posters removed and curled with care to avoid creases, every non-essential lay packed and prepped in boxes that now litter the living room in a mess that fills Oikawa with exhilaration and fear.

Ushijima still lays within Oikawa: a dragon, cement, a termite, a wisp. The last days of the contract have Ushijima snapping and snarling in ways Oikawa cannot fully explain. But he also sits very still inside Oikawa, as if to meditate in the company. It leaves something stuck in Oikawa’s throat like a solidified boulder of Oikawa’s regret and anger and longing. Ushijima’s face still comes to mind easily, too easily. Oikawa lays in a bed that once held two bodies and thinks of the day they won’t be able to clearly picture Ushijima’s nose, his eyes. They lay in bed and for once focus solely on the future.

\---

Moveout day feels like a dream. Oikawa feels unusually light in body and brain, carting and carrying boxes packed too full and too heavy. Michimiya and Misaki and Iwaizumi appear almost like ghosts, gracious and helpful in emptying Oikawa’s shell of a once-apartment.

Ushijima is suspiciously quiet, but he still sits within Oikawa, they’re positive of it. As if he too feels weary from the battle, Ushijima raises no complaint as his clothes, packed and folded away, are dropped at the nearest Goodwill. He endures as his collected belongings disperse until the end of the day arrives and Michimiya, with the utmost caution, helps Earnest Hemingway into her truck.

Oikawa opens the tank to reach their hand in, pet Earnest Hemingway with the tip of their finger. The goodbye sits ill with them and feels almost performative. They almost wish they ignored the departure of Earnest Hemingway altogether, but feared the regret of such a decision to suck it up and go through with a short farewell.

And then everyone leaves.

And Oikawa stands alone in the shell that was home. In the coffin of the life that Ushijima created. Nothing of his remains, but the walls, as if cursed to absorb his being, retain that strength and power over Oikawa that feels so much like Ushijima.

And Oikawa leaves.

And Ushijima sits.

Oikawa returns their key to the landlady, walks to their car with the final boxes already packed inside, drives in a silence that usually unnerves them, arrives to a smaller apartment that Ushijima never knew in flesh—

And Oikawa begins.


End file.
